Main menu

Post navigation

Despite the May deal (which may be doomed) is the UK bound for a Norway-style EFTA Brexit?

I posted something recently on Facebook about Michael Gove’s appetite for an EFTA-style Brexit for the UK – the Norway model. My understanding is that he has been quietly pushing this idea for a while – most visibly when he declined the role of Brexit Secretary to back and sell the May deal, upon which Cabinet support is lukewarm. I would bet that some members of the Cabinet – both Leavers and Remainers – only ‘support’ the deal (for now) because they calculate it is doomed anyhow.

The EU27 have now signed off on the Withdrawal Agreement – though some may need parliamentary confirmation. Theresa May also requires such approval, in a vote due to take place on 11th December. To me it looks less and less likely she will win that, though she can expect payroll supporters, Conservative loyalists and some Labour rebels to back it. In the days following the publication of the text, I thought momentum might build in its favour, but instead it seems to be going the other way. The Prime Minister is not helped by President Macron’s crowing about his potential leverage in upcoming negotiations over fishing rights.

But also, the EFTA idea seems to be gaining momentum. And if that continues, it will be harder still for Theresa May to secure her votes. I spoke to one Cabinet minister last week who told me he predicts we will stay (somehow) in the Single Market, ie something akin to EFTA. A growing cabal of other Cabinet ministers seem to be coalescing around the idea.

There are problems with EFTA. It would give us little influence over over EU regulations. We would keep freedom of movement (pragmatically good, politically awkward). It might be regarded as Brexit in name only – upsetting both Leavers and Remainers for contrary reasons. But many will regard it as a more tenable compromise than the present proposal. It would complete the divorce with the potential for future divergence on British terms in a manner which limits immediate disruption.

The other major problem with EFTA is that other EFTA countries (Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Leichtenstein) are less than keen to find their overall economic weight matched by a schizophrenic troublemaker perched in the porch wondering whether to come in or out.

But unlike the May deal, no deal and no Brexit, an EFTA arrangement could secure the backing of Parliament. But quite how we get there however is unclear – there are significant obstacles domestic and foreign. But no deal at all is a very real threat. Brexit is the unstoppable train that arrives on 29th March unless – somehow – it is stopped. Some commentators imagine the markets or the £ will crash following the Commons vote, preempting a swift political alignment. Don’t count on it. Political expectations are already priced into the markets.

Unlike his ‘chuckle brother‘ the late Lord Bannside (aka the Rev Dr Ian Paisley), I never met Martin McGuinness. But he was just as significant a player in my early years. And if Paisley deserved my recognition in death, then so too does McGuinness, who served alongside Paisley as Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister.

It is not quite fair to describe the men as two sides of the same coin. I believe Paisley had a “very real, and negative impact on Northern Ireland’s community relations, particularly at the outset of The Troubles, but also in later years… I became convinced that the course of history could have been very different were it not for Paisley’s stirring in the 1960s.”

But Ian Paisley was no killer.

Conversely, McGuinness has acknowledged his IRA membership (and seniority) in the early years of the Troubles. He was convicted of terrorism offences by an Irish court in 1973. Despite claiming to be “very, very proud” of his IRA membership, he claims to have left in 1974, but credible sources believe he was head of its Northern Command throughout the 1980s or at least a member of its seven-man Army Council – ie a director of terrorism. Perhaps Mr McGuinness never pulled the trigger – I doubt we’ll ever know – but many innocent men, women and children died on his orders.

I knew no-one personally who was killed by the IRA, but in 1989 my house was destroyed by a car-bomb parked outside the police station across the road. My family evacuated to safety a short time before and we had to live elsewhere for six months while much of the house was rebuilt. The bomb was planted by IRA volunteers.

No reasonable tribute to Martin McGuinness can ignore this aspect of his career.

But, somehow, his bitter enemy Ian Paisley was able to see past this when they eventually served in office together (briefly in 2007-8). They became close friends, and upon Paisley’s death some years later, McGuinness offered this tribute:

Very sad to learn that Ian Paisley has died.My deepest sympathy to his wife Eileen & family.Once political opponents – I have lost a friend.

It was quite a leap of character for both men to have enjoyed such an unlikely friendship. Unfortunately, such is the nature of death, we are unable to enjoy Paisley’s reciprocal message. But his wife and children have all paid tribute.

And Ian Paisley Jr, who succeeded his father as the MP for North Antrim, offered this rather balanced assessment of McGuinness’s impact on Northern Irish life.

“He was the Godfather of the Provisional IRA… but it’s not how you start your life that is important, but it’s how you finish your life,” concludes Mr Paisley.

His father’s successor as First Minister, Peter Robinson, penned this reflection of the seven years he shared in office with Mr McGuinness: “Our unique relationship was probably more robust than most friendships and certainly closer, more complicated and formidable than many.” And also: “We had to accept frustration and respect the pace of each other’s support base.”

Life is a journey, and in turning towards peace (without victory, it must be stressed), McGuinness and his Sinn Fein colleague Gerry Adams, led many fellow travellers with them. Their quest (whatever their past) has brought Northern Ireland to a much better place.

It could be said of Mr McGuinness that, by turning away from violence, he demonstrated repentance. That is disputed by many of his opponents who sought something more akin to contrition. He never showed remorse or contrition in public, though to do so might have destroyed his credibility with IRA supporters.

However, or if ever, he atoned for his sins is a matter between him and God.

Still alive…

He is outlived, of course, by Her Majesty The Queen – herself a unionist icon and a symbol of enmity for Irish republicans. Her relative Lord Mountbatten was murdered by the IRA in 1979. Her own scalp would have been quite a coup, but she kept her head and she and McGuinness managed to exchange cordial pleasantries more than once. In this final meeting between them in June last year, she quipped that she was “still alive” when he enquired after her health…

But my Twitter feed has been in meltdown over the past 24 hours, and one of my tweets (to a Professor Robert E Kelly in South Korea) seems to imply that I was somehow responsible for his BBC World News interview (with guest stars) going nuclear.

@David_Waddell What would that mean, please? Re-broadcasting it on BBC TV, or just here on Twitter? Is this kinda thing that goes 'viral' and gets weird?

In truth, it was clear this would go viral regardless. In the right context, clips like this can be re-published without significant risk of copyright infringement. By the time I saw Kelly’s response, it was well on the way. And at the time of writing it has been viewed several tens of millions of times.

Nevertheless, I felt we (the BBC) had a responsibility to seek his consent before adding our own wind to the storm. He and his wife were – understandably – reticent. A colleague of mine, Antony Dore, spoke to them both and managed to persuade them, no doubt helped by the fact the ship (the fleet?) had already sailed. Despite broadcasting the original live interview, I think it’s fair to say we were not amongst the first ships out of port. And in this case, we got it right. We did not require consent, but courtesy is free and having successful relationships with our contributors is critical to what we do.

I had to mute notifications on my Twitter feed. Various of my tweets have been seen hundreds of thousands of times; the one above has made over half a million ‘impressions’. Engagements with my tweets, or (more likely) others I was mentioned in, have run into the tens of thousands. Given the subsequent chaos, Kelly’s curiosity about whether this is the “kinda thing that goes ‘viral’ and gets weird” is just sublime.

I dread to think how it feels to be on the receiving end of that, to be at the heart of the story, to see so much ill-considered social media invective amongst the joy it brought many others. As I see it, Professor Kelly’s children are a credit to him, and while he and his wife must be mortified about what happened, there was something strikingly normal about the whole scenario. My favourite moment was the grand entrance of the baby-on-wheels. Confident, and fast!

My own children are aged four and one, similar to his. I sure could see this playing out in my home, though as my wife takes client calls by Skype it would be my special responsibility to prevent it. Should the worst happen (it won’t), I can’t really imagine it playing out any more calmly. I will take this clip as a warning.

Kelly now has 18,000 more Twitter followers than Friday morning (up 800%). Bizarrely, I now have 400 more followers. Another colleague, Bryony Hopkins, who requested the interview in the first place, also had to mute her Twitter notifications. She witnessed people watching the clip on the tube on her way home from work. And a random neighbour mentioned the clip to me this morning – my walk-on role in the whole saga unknown to him.

Completely surreal day! And now I'm watching people watch it on the tube and crack massive smiles… all in a days work 😂😄 pic.twitter.com/037t9f9AWf

One point of irritation to me… there was a widespread assumption that the woman who eventually restored order was a nanny. It was not an assumption I shared, and we soon learned it was the mortified mother. But why did so many of us jump to this conclusion? I won’t spell it out, but perhaps she fitted a stereotype of some kind. The BBC’s Helier Cheung has given this some further analysis here.

Finally, lost in the fray, South Korea lost her president on Friday, impeached by Parliament and confirmed by a court, due to a corruption scandal. Pusan National University’s Professor Robert Kelly is something of an expert on the wider issues. Let’s hear him out. The interviewer: James Menendez.

It was genuinely challenging. I have read two books and hundreds of commentaries in pursuit of my answer, whilst engaging in debate here and elsewhere.

Due to the nature of my employment – and a need for impartiality – I have restricted my comments on Facebook and Twitter to address issues of process, tactics and strategy rather than the core arguments for and against our membership of the EU. Suffice to say there has been plenty to say about both official campaigns and other people’s commentary.

Whilst the debate itself has been unedifying, I accept that the interest of many key players is divergent from those of the British people. On both sides, the job of campaigners is to win the referendum. There are no prizes for coming second, however honourable the defeat. So while I despise the campaign methods, I have some sympathy for the motivations.

This is not a decision where we vote for the best debater or the strongest campaign. Instead we must decide what is best for ourselves, or our children, or the UK or indeed Europe as a whole. In this respect the quality of the background debate is almost incidental.

My own decision is personal to me – a product of my worldview, my own personal biases and the research that has brought me here. It pays surprisingly little heed to what the campaigns on either side would like me to focus on.

For those of you yet to decide, good luck.

If you cannot bring yourself to vote one way or the other, please at least turn up and spoil your vote. It sends its own valuable signal. But if you lean one way or the other, even slightly, please vote in that spirit. So many of our brothers and sisters across the nation will be driven by ignorance or spurious motivations. Your voice carries equal weight. Make sure it is heard.

It’s little wonder we in the UK seem to feel so much concern over immigration. It’s not – generally – the migrants themselves who trouble such a tolerant nation, but the state’s inability to grow infrastructure to keep up with population growth.

“No one told the supermarkets,” writes Fraser Nelson, “that there would be 4 million more mouths to feed since the turn of the century, but we haven’t run out of food.” But ministers “have struggled to provide the school places and the doctors clinics for all those who arrived.”

“It’s time to stop treating high immigration as a constantly-surprising blip.”

We need to better understand why immigration troubles people – typically (but not only) working class people of the left and right. It’s very often not xenophobia. People don’t blame migrants for immigration any more than we blame the water for an incoming tide. But when the state (at national or local level) fails to meet the infrastructure needs of the nation we shouldn’t be surprised so many voters want to turn off the population tap. Clearly that impacts our attitude to immigration and by extension our attitude to the EU, and (quite separately) the refugee crisis.

There is a public malaise on migration. Successive governments should reflect upon why they might be largely responsible for that.

Update: We’ve just learned that Rochdale’s Gillian Duffy has left the Labour Party and plans to vote Brexit in the forthcoming referendum.

Mrs Duffy rose to fame during the 2010 general election. Gordon Brown infamously described her as “just a sort of bigoted woman” after chatting to her on the campaign trail about (amongst other things) immigration from eastern Europe. I had her in mind as I wrote this blog post.

Iran and Iraq are both Shia-majority nations, unlike the rest of the Islamic world. While that seems to explain their lack of involvement, it doesn’t excuse any arrangement which excludes them, particularly when so much terror in the region is sectarian in nature (Sunni vs Shia).

How Saudi Arabia defines terrorism is critical. Atheism and any views critical of Saudi Arabia’s government or Wahhabi ideology might be classed as terrorism.

Within the territory of the so-called Islamic State, it’s hard to see what Daesh activity might be understood as terrorism. There is considerable overlap in domestic policy between Daesh and Saudi Arabia. It seems to me they are more rivals than enemies. One sees itself as the new caliphate, the other is Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

It seems to me that a united Arab response to terrorism in the Middle East would be A Good Thing. Saudi Arabia’s solution raises more questions than it answers and I fear it would pose more fresh problems than it would solve.

Update (at 1406 on 30 Nov): The Guardian reports that Jeremy Corbyn will give his MPs a free vote on the question of airstrikes over Syria. The commentary I posted below about the wider context stands, though obviously the central question has now been answered. It does give us some insight into Mr Corbyn’s leadership strategy and the extent to which he wishes to hold the party together:

Today Jeremy Corbyn and his Shadow Cabinet will wrestle with the thorny question of whether to impose a three-line whip on Labour MPs over airstrikes in Syria.

Inevitably Mr Corbyn is against military action (as he has been against wars in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere). It seems that most of the Shadow Cabinet are in favour of the proposed airstrikes, along with a significant minority of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

They could hold a free vote, allowing all Labour MPs to vote with their conscience.

Or they could whip the matter. There seems to be some confusion over whether (under Labour rules) a whipping decision lies in the hands of the Leader or the wider Shadow Cabinet.

If that authority lies with the Shadow Cabinet, and they decide to impose a whip in line with the judgement of the Shadow Cabinet (ie in favour of airstrikes), then Mr Corbyn would be placed under the absurd obligation to decide whether to fall in line (against his conscience) or resign from his own Shadow Cabinet. I think it is untenable that they would put Mr Corbyn in this position (elected as he was so recently and with with such a large mandate). Were they to do so, rather than resign, Mr Corbyn would have little option but disband his Shadow Cabinet and start again.

Given Mr Corbyn’s own voting record, many MPs may feel they are not meaningfully bound by a three-line whip imposed by him.

The Government has a tiny parliamentary majority and there are a number of Conservative rebels – it could easily be defeated by a united opposition. But Labour is not united. There is every chance the Government could win a vote on its motion regardless of whether Labour grants a free vote or not.

Even if JC whipped against, there'd be 10-20 Labour rebels. If only 10, & 25 abstentions, vote still 329 to 276 For pic.twitter.com/zc1gZmjkLv

Thus far, the Defence Secretary has played down the Government’s prospects of success, while he and others have been working to persuade Labour MPs one by one to support the Government motion. The Prime Minister does not want egg on his face, given fresh memories of his parliamentary knockdown on Syria in 2013.

Depending on how this plays out, this could be one of the most momentous weeks in the modern history of the Labour Party. In my view, the impact on the integrity of the party could be even greater than that of Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader in September. However he proceeds, this will be a key factor in his decision.